Where I End and You Begin
by wrath
Summary: Awaking into a nightmare may cause the rising of a question...What if I'm just another part of the dream?
1. Meanwhile, far away

Where I end and you begin

Prologue- Meanwhile, far away.

'_I hate this place.'_

And that was the only thought to fill the nurse's head as she rounded the corner to find herself presented with _yet another_ of Brook Haven's sterile, unremarkable hallways. With a flat grunt, she gave the lumbering metal trolley she'd been left charge of a vicious push, wrestling against it as the rickety wheels holding it inches above the floor which positively hummed with the sharp tang of disinfectant began their sharp yammering once more. Having stopped the cart from fulfilling its dream of ploughing straight into the pale, sickly green wall that fell away to her side as she turned, the nurse let her mind slip back into its former state of bitter stewing.

'_I hate this job too…'_

On she and the trolley rolled while the harsh over-head lamps beat on down, spewing their artificial light all over the cart's content, illuminating various capsules and boxes along with the menagerie of pills stored with in with a sickly, false hue.

'_And of course,' _the young nurse went on, her mental whining staying safely locked with in the confides of her skull. _'Let's not forget patient number S4's god damn reading material.' _For a brief moment, the light flickered on in her eyes as they dropped down to the cart and cut through the clutter littering it's stainless steel top, the dull pupils coming to a rest on a hefty dog eared book. The nurse felt the muscles around her mouth tease her lips into a curl, giving her the appearance of someone who has just spied what the dog heaved up onto the carpet as her gaze lay upon the tome. It was one of those volumes that looked as though it could be classified as a lethal weapon if dropped from a reasonable height.

'_I hate that, but not as much as I hate all these goddamn stiffs.' _The un-heard rant raged on as she came to a halt outside a door that looked just like all the others that lined the corridor. The only thing that allowed it to stand somewhat apart from the rest of its brood was the small, metal plank nailed into it, adorned with the number four and letter 'S'. _'Vegetables, the lot of them. They don't know just how good they've got it.' _Without even looking down at the forest of medicine containers, the nurse scooped up one of the little orange containers and that great big book as if she'd gone through the motion every day of her life. Sighing, she pulled a key from the front pocket of her uniform, unlocked the door before her and dragged herself inside room S4.

For a moment, she had to pull herself out of the haze that she'd submerged herself in and blinked. The atmosphere in here was so much heavier than that of the snaking hallways; even the rich, three o'clock sun seemed to be having difficulty wading through the air in here as it trickled through the single, barred window...

…But this sensation of blundering into another strange, alien world only held her with its magic for a moment. Almost mechanically, the Nurse cranked her self round and turned on the bed crammed up against the wall. That sunlight just caught the synthetic, scratchy blanket, setting the wool ablaze and leaving the nurse squinting as she tried to make out the tell-tale mound that indicated the bed's lone occupant.

"It's medication time." She drawled, watching half-heartedly for any indication of life from Mr. S4. "I brought that book you were hankering for too…" She trailed off, her listless voice evaporating into the sun-washed air.

There was no reaction.

Fantastic. Just fantastic. She'd managed to catch the lazy bastard having one of his 'little naps'. Going on past experience, rousing him would be no easy task (though not nearly as unpleasant as it had been to drag that Mr. Kaprow in M3 out of bed) and she couldn't just leave the pills here on the bed-side table on the assumption that the patient, upon waking, would put two and two together and pop the colourful little tablets. Oh no, some big wig and his friends had got together and decided that an act like that would qualify as _negligence_ and if any young nurse was fool enough to entertain the notion of leaving these patience up to their own devices when it came to taking their medicine only to have something go wrong… well, they'd be up to their chin in law suites faster than you could say 'see you in court'.

With yet another of those 'what the hell did I do to end up here' sighs, she placed the assortment of pills and that loathsome book down on the little, spotless table that was huddled up against the mattress like the fretting relative that never came to visit the man occupying room S4.

"Come on, you need to take your medicine now." The nurse turned on the bed and the motionless lump inhabiting it. She lent over him, and was just about to give him a less than gentle shake when she looked down, caching his up-turned face just within the edge of her vision.

She froze; jerking her head round to make sure it hadn't been a trick of the dusky light.

It hadn't, and for the first time since she'd walked in through Brook Haven Hospital's entrance at five of the am, the look of sulky apathy buckled with emotion.

Fear and shock. The pair filled her as she watched the twisted, writhing face of the sandy-haired man, gurning as if some invisible force had decided it would be fun to open him up and give his insides a good stir with a hot poker. His eyes raced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, eye-lids yanked open to expose even the small nest of veins that traced the orbs' circumference. The muscles in his throat gave a sharp spasm as something rocketed up his throat and escaping from his wide lips as a small, wet, strangulated sound. The Nurse didn't even feel the warm, damp spray of saliva that escaped with it hit her face.

'_A fit… oh god, he's having a fit and they'll say it's all my fault.' _The thought blazed through her head at one hundred and twenty miles per hour and the nurse reeled back, yanking herself away from the choking, thrashing visage. She was about to tear herself from the bed as well, just to put even more distance between her and the man who seemed to be in the very grips of a death thro when it all stopped; the mouth clicked shut with a dry clack of teeth on teeth and eyes froze in their very sockets, the two black dots at their centre drilling into the nurse.

The room plummeted into silence.

"…" The Nurse opened her mouth to say something but whatever it was clung tenaciously to the walls of her throat like a bunch of swallowed fish-bones.

'_Get someone in charge… you're not paid enough to deal with something like this.'_

Right, yes. Good idea. Get a doctor, then you can share the blame when this sap goes and swallows his tongue.

The Nurse rose stiffly, straightened up and turned to bolt from the room. However, before she could take even one step towards the door, something warm and tight locked around her wrist.

"Help me."

The Nurse shot a glance over her shoulder as the piteous run of words breezed past her ear. The patient was still boring into her with a pair of wide eyes, chocked with rabid panic. "Help me!" The cry came again, a little louder while the hand snaking out from beneath the sheets wound tighter around the nurse's caught arm. If she'd been able to look down, she would have seen all the tendons and veins that ran across the appendage stand out like a bunch of iron chords under his paper thin skin as it gripped desperately onto her, biting down like a sprung bear trap.

But the nurse could do nothing but look into those fretful eyes and feel herself begin to lose herself within them.

"HE'S COMING!" Suddenly, the man was up on his two feet, both hands sinking themselves into any part of the nurse they could find as they scurried over her, hunting for something to cling to and save him from what ever nightmare he'd stumbled into while dozing on the now empty bed. "OH GOD, CAN'T YOU SEE?" He yanked the nurse towards him, her shoes slipping helplessly against the linioum floor as his arms snapped in. "HE'S GOING TO GET ME... HE'S GOING TO KILL, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO SOMETHING. PLE". He choked, the words tangling in his throat as his voice cut out. The only thing that now escaped from that wide, yawning mouth that hung open only inches from the nurse's face was empty silence that washed over her in ragged breaths. The pair stood like that for only a mere moment; utterly stock still as if some celestial viewer had chosen this exact moment to press the pause button on the whole ghastly scene before it got a chance to spiral any further out of control.

But it couldn't last forever. Ever so slowly, like a pieces of rusty old machinery on their final legs, the patient's hands began to sack, allowing the blood to flood back into the nurse's arms. The sensation of that warm torrent rushing back into her numb fingers was all it took to snap her from what ever ghastly , hypnotic charm that panicking gaze of his had cast over her. With a yelp she tore herself free from his already limp hands with enough gusto to send her staggering backwards, but that was just fine with her, it took her all the nearer to the open and waiting door. Without taking her eyes off the sagging man, she bolted for the hallway that lay beyond it and threw herself out of the tiny room as if the patient lurking with in it were already chasing after her, armed with all manner of sharp and pointy implements.

Her performance wasn't necessary. By the time her screams came echoing down the long and barren corridor, the spindly inhabitant of room S4 had already collapsed to his knees and was slowly sinking into nothing more than a dejected heap. Those arms, which had only moments ago been running high on adrenaline and just about ready to crush the poor nurse suspended between them, slipped around his torso, softly clutching at the wool of his hospital gown as if the cheap, flimsy material were the only thing holding him together.

Numbly, he sat in the soft rectangle of mellow, afternoon sun that came streaming in through the room's lone and tiny window, but even it's yellow touch couldn't warm him back into life as his quietly contemplated a spot on the wall with eyes that cut straight through it and into some dark, uncharted land.

8 8 8

AN- And so, after a very, very long interlude, I'm sitting down to write something longer than one chapter. Some of you people may recognise me as that poor speller who wrote that painfully long fic: Sin's of the Father, if so, I hope I can hold your attention with this new story. If not, then I'll just warn you now, despite grooming this with a spell checker, the occational fault may slip through so please, bear with me. Thanks again.

P.S- this story is basically what I though Silent Hill 4 was going to be, so there may be some ideas that seem a little like it. However, my pre-conception turned out to be nothing at all like the game.

Silent Hill is property of Konami, blah, blah, blah, excetera!


	2. 4 am

Chapter 1: 4am

There was a sharp gasp and the man in the bed jerked bolt up-right, spluttering and chocking as he swam up from the murky clutches of the nightmare. Time ticked by and for a moment, as he sat amongst the knotted nest of bed sheets warm and clammy with his own damp sweat, he couldn't stop his muzzy eyes from unscrupulously racing between each and every shadow loitering about the room's corners as if the very absence of light would lunge right at him. The lurid green figures displayed by a digital clock buried on the night-stand by his bed under an assortment of late-night and dog eared reading material got to flicker and morph at least twice before the man was finally satisfied that his night-time antagonist hadn't somehow found a way to come lumbering after him into the world of the living.

His heart began to slow and he let the pent up air in his lungs go. No, he was safe for now; the nightmare and all the monsters that lurked with in it had remained safely locked away within his skull for at least another night.

The man exhaled and let the little ball of tight tension in his spin unravel. Slumping, he turned to the window adorned with its half drawn and far from expensive curtains, squinting at the garish orange light that peculated in from some lonesome street lamp outside.

"This makes it the third time this week…" His hushed voice muttered to no-one but the gloom hovering about him. Indeed, this was the third time that the dream had visited him while he slumbered since Sunday night.

Today was merely Wednesday.

With a groan, the man clambered up out of the bed, wiping the sleep that had taken up residency in-between his eye-lids and staggered out onto the worn carpet of his apartment with all the grace of a blind drunk as his body tried to get used to the idea of being awake. His dozy joints protested and the little voice of concise that his head played host to mumbled sleepily something about just rolling over and going back to the land of nod.

The man paid them no heed. Like one of those unidentabel extras from one of those b-movie zombie flicks that often plagued the air-waves at this ungodly hour of four am, he absentmindedly shambled off to the bathroom with the soul aim to relive the stabbing sensation tickling his bladder which, his sleep-numbed mind dully noted, felt as though it had been replaced with a lead ball.

However, this wasn't the soul though that occupied his mind as he tripped and blundered his way to the ajar bathroom door. Oh no, the short walk that would take no more that fifteen seconds for even the most out-of-it gave him more than enough time to meditate upon the subject of The Dream.

It was always the same, every single time. He'd find himself standing in a hallway that looked as though it hadn't been used by another homo-sapian for about half a centaury… and that was being grossly generous. The grimy over-head light bulb that half-heartedly tried to shed some light on the grimy, dust caked corridor was just strong enough to pick out the long, jagged grooves that had been maliciously tattooed into the few ceramic tiles that hadn't already subsumed to gravity and fallen to ground... not that the bare, exposed plaster was spared from being scrawled all over either. Whatever had etched the crazy network of cuts and lines looked as though it had been sharp… very, very sharp indeed. To make matters worse, something that looked a little too akin to dried, caked blood had been splattered _everywhere_, clinging in thick, crusty lumps to anything that was unfortunate enough to have a globule of the stuff land on it.

The man would always be given a handful of a few short seconds to take all this in while trying not to drown in the pungent, sharp reek of spoilt meat that swamped his nostrils, but then, as regular as clock-work, something would interrupt the silence behind him, cutting the sound of the rugged breathing short and making it catch in his throat.

He knew what lurking in the rancid dark, every single time he would fall asleep and wake up here, he was more than aware of what had made that noise and was lurking just behind him, safely out of view.

So why oh why did he always have to turn around and expose himself to it?

Well, he would and, as always, _he_ would be there waiting for him to do so, hovering just at the edge of the glow of sickly, dying light that just about illuminated the hallway. However, it was not so pathetic that it couldn't pick out some vauge details of the entity that skulked with in the inky darkness as _he_ beamed back at the dreamer with the soft, beguling smile of a crocodile trying to intice you that little bit closer to its seemingly innocent maw.

Despite having been plagued by this nightmare for months on end now, the white hot flush of panic never failed to bowl straight into him as his eyes danced over the form of the man shaped thing, drinking in the ashend shaed of _his_ leering visage and the deep, crimson stains littering the material of his long white coat that stood out painfully against the bleached material. Funnly enough, the coat was one of those long things self-imoportant doctors like to sheath themselves in as they strut about hospitals, looking as spick and span as their sterile environment… however, this particular doctor looked as though he'd just come staggering out of an operating theatre where he'd been star of the show at a corony by-pass.

The irony of it never failed to catch him it, even if it were just for a single tick of a moment, for as soon as the dreamer laid eyes upon this leering presence, that warm smile pinning back _his _face would dissolve, twisting into something horrible as it the true sentiment behind it was finally allowed to bubble to the surface. Before the man even got the chance to even thinking about turning on his heels and bolting, _he_ would come from him with hands splayed wide as the man in the dark lunged at him, rocketing out from the black, all absorbing back-drop and still grinning like a lunatic.

And then he'd wake up.

A shudder shook the dreamer as he reached for the cool, metal handle and let the sound of flushing water resonate about the tiny bathroom as the contence of the ceramic bowl before him gurgled away. Looking back on it now that he was reasonably with it, this dream didn't sound like much of a nightmare on paper. Hell, being jumped by a manic doctor in a corridor that made the subway look like the entrance to the New-York Hilton wasn't exactly the kind of thing that should tare one from the land of nod wondering if their heart is going to give out there and then…

…But it did. It just felt… it felt so very real.

The man just gave another shrug. It was far too early to be trying to un-ravel the logic behind dreams… and anyways, it _was_ just a _dream_. There honestly was no point whiling away his waking hours fretting over something that was just a mish-mash of fantasy and subconscious anxiety.

There was a soft click and a blast of sharp light invaded the cramped room just in-time to highlight the man's hand falling away from the stringy chord of the bathroom lamp and thud limply to his side. He looked up, turning his face all swollen with sleep towards the cabinet mirror that was pinned in just above the spotless white bowl of the toilet sink.

The visage of a man in his mid thirties, blighted with sallow skin complete with crater like scars that were a testament to an itchy fingered teen's war against acne and muddy (and currently thumping shade of bloodshot red) eyes that tried to hide behind the flop of dirt-blond hair that was a more than content with being an unruly and short mess. The name that went hand in hand with the face that blearily glanced back from the mirror's reflective depths was Frederick Goldfarb; a man who lead an unbelievably un-eventful and bone dry existence. Screwy dreams asides of course.

Something that might just have been disappointment tugged at the muscles of the man's face as it dawned on him that the person looking right back at him was actually his self and, along with that face and name, came the unremarkable and lonely life attached. Suddenly, Fred found himself wishing he'd never reached for the bathroom light and instead, just been content with mulling over that god damn dream as he loitered there in the dark, alone with his delirious, sleep deprived thoughts. Numbly, he looked down at the bulky wrist watch clamped around the end of his arm, blinking hard at it as he tried to make sense of the metallic strips that glared up at him sharply from underneath the thin cataracts of glass, gleaming vindictively with the tart light provided so graciously by the sixty watt bulb over-head.

Seven minuets past four.

With nothing more than a dull 'oh' of acknowledgement, Fred absorbed the information and let the array and network of neurons and brain cells crammed away inside his skull run out the automatic functions. It was horrendously early…the kind of time that no one in their right mind would chose to pass awake and if he didn't want to be doing a Oscar winning performance of a corpse tomorrow down at the library, it would be wise to saunter back into his cold, empty and waiting bed right now.

Having completely forgotten what possessed him to turn it on, Fred reached for the still swinging chord and, with a sloppy flick of the wrist, plunged the room back into the bleak shade of early morning grey. He took the voices in his head's suggestion and crawled back between the sheets that hosted him each and every night.

Frederick spent the few remaining morning hours on his back and boring holes into the ceiling, watching the rising sun creep away its plastered surface while waiting for a slumber that just refused to catch. This was probably a good thing as, come this ugly time tomorrow, something would crash into his life and smash apart the repetitive sequence of events that composed each day to which he'd grown so accustomed to.

In short, with in the next twenty-four hours his world would be turned on its head and its new found view was far from pretty.

A/N: yup, bugger all happened then… personally, I fell the first chapter is weak and feeble and it took way too long to get up. Oh well.

Just call me blue- heh, tis fine…. just as long as you don't get as creepy as that 'wrath's lover' guy. And Eva's a great series and thoroughly deserves to be read just for what it is.

Deacon87- thank you very much. And I promise there will be more. This story's probably going to take a long while.

Wiezerdgamir- what can I say, I just like working with really, really minor charaters, the nurse being a prim example. I hope the rest of this will live up to your expectations

EPO- Yep, _he_ was derived from walter and rest assured.. I didn't acctualy even finish SH4 so the similaites will probably only crop up with the location and one or two of the charaters.

Slap-Dash- Good to hear I've still got it, even if it was only the first chapter. Heh, I wish it was down to carlessnes but I just can't spell at all which is somewhat off putting when you look over a page and see pretty much the whole thing's underlined with sgwiggly, angrey red lines.

Elric- Ah-ha! You are a sharp one, arn't you? Kudos to you for spotting that.


	3. Clockwork

Chapter 2: Clockwork

'_bang'_

'_click'_

And so, as Frederick wrenched his key from the lock to room '207' and slung them back into the recesses of his jeans' pocket to make acquaintances with the fluff and empty gum-wrappers that resided there, the events of the day would be put into motion.

It would always start like this, continue like this and end like this. Day in, day out, month after month. Just like yesterday and the horde of days before it, he'd inevitably walk down the corridor, not bothering to stop at the mail box unless it was the third of the month (oh, on days like that, he'd momentarily pause to open the draw labelled with the same set of numbers drilled into the front of his apartment and scoop out the congregation of bills in their unjustifiably bright, cheery envelopes) and try to brush of that curious look '203's Eva Oldfield would aim at him from the corners of her milky, cataract eaten eyes. After the excitement of all that, he'd lumber off down to the double doors that barred the apartment off from the equally placid outside world and stroll on to the library where he'd kill of yet another un-eventful day before coming home, while away yet more time and go to bed...

…Then the whole process would kick off once again as the tinny, shrill whine of his alarm would bring him floundering back to the realm of the waked at seven o'clock the following morning on a day that faithfully promised to be indistinguishable from the last.

How very mechanical it all was. Sometimes Goldfarb would stay plotted before his door, bow his head and hold his breath for a few moments as he listened for the tell-tale clicking of the smooth running, never tiring cogs and wheels that might just be lurking behind the thin plastered walls and keeping this world he lived in running at its never-deviating pace.

Most days however, he'd scold at himself for allowing his mind to play host to such a ridiculous notion. What you saw was what you got; what was the point in allowing one's imagination to run away with themselves like that on a ludicrous flight of fancy?

It.got.you.nowhere.

One should just swallow the pill, no matter how tasteless it was, after all, there was no desk you could march up to with the intention of demanding that the big guy upstairs stopped sitting around feeling his ass grow all day long and do something to spice up your life. It… it just didn't work that way.

With a dragging exhalation, Frederick tore himself away from the spot before his door and ambled down the hall, complete with a fresh new lick of paint that sadly attempted to cover up the ever more assertive signs of ware and tare while making the place stink like a chemical factory.

Perhaps it didn't help that Silent Hill wasn't exactly the most exciting place in the world to live. The weather and people who lived within the rural settlement reflected one another pretty well; dull and cold…and both stayed in a similar state all year round. Most of the children would move out the second they hit nineteen and those few who did decide to live out the remainder of the days were either as eccentric as their home-grown parents or had inherited their un-adventurous nature. That all said, there were one or two details about Silent Hill that stood out from the mundane mass of turgid facts; for starters, it was said that there was some voodoo-underground-cult-lets-sacrifice-us-a-virgin thing going on but Goldfarb suspected there was as much truth in that particular rumour as there was in the quirky belief that alligators roamed the very sewers of New-York city…

… and then, only last week, they'd found that totalled, wreck of a car just beyond the Town's perimeter. Apparently, it had flipped over after trying to avoid a pedestrian who'd gone for an ill advised wonder in the fog (something that was pretty much a permanent resident of the town) but sadly, the driver had been just that little bit too slow on turning the wheel and applying the break. That mistake had cost him his rib-cadge, lungs and heart as the steering wheel had gone and embedded it deep with in his chest cavity while the poor jay walker had ended up as nothing more than a gross picnic for the carrion and a smear on the tarmac several meters behind the up-turned vehicle. However, none of this accounted for the two battered and broken corpses found with in the trashed car along with the deceased driver…

…but that was a story for another day, and one Fredrick really didn't care for. Letting those momentary flickers of thought sink back down into the quagmire of useless, miscellaneous bits of half-remembered fact and cluttered information that was rattling away within his cranium, the man buttoned up his coat and stepped outside, greeting the day with a face utterly void of expression.

8 8 8

With a grunt, Frederick lurched through the chipped, barred door, ignoring the angry clang as the metallic barrier smacked off the alleyway's wall and stumbled out into the twig light, dragging a somewhat stubborn bag of garbage behind him. Damn it, this would have been so much easier if he hadn't shirked away from this mundane task for the past four days and turned a blind, ignorant eye to the gradual build up of clutter.

Well, his idleness was most certainly paying off in droves right now, wasn't it? A bubble of frustration popped within the moist alcove of Goldfarb's throat as he strode on (or at least made a bold effort to), fighting against the swollen black bag's tenacious grip on the gravel as the greasy material dug its metaphorical nails in deep. Oh come on! The great, hulking form of the green dumpster was no more that seven meters away and at this rate he was probably going to pull every single muscle in his back trying to cover this pathetic distance.

The soft grinding of bone on bone warbled down the man's auditory nerve as his jaw set like ridged concrete. He lifted up his foot, took a step forward and…

_Rip_

Suddenly, the whole business of striding forward was no more a chore than normal (i.e, when Fredric _wasn't_ lugging a tone and a half of trash behind him). As if on automatic, he glanced over the shoulder, only to find himself face to face with the obvious explanation; the reason this whole turgid motion was suddenly such a breeze was because he was no longer tugging the said tone and a half of rubbish behind him. Rather, he was merely holding the tail end of the knot he'd sealed the foul smelling bag with and a very limp husk of shapeless plastic complete with a great, yawning tear in it. For a moment, Fredric did little more than look down at the mass of papers saturate with 'garbage water', fruit peels and the renaments of last nights take-away as they lay there on the alphsplat for all the word to see, spilling forth from the gaping perforation like lose entrails from a savage wound, slick with their own greasy fluids.

'_Just pick it up' _one of those floating voices within his skull sighed tersely. Fred didn't even think of protesting, finding his back bowed and hands buried deep with in the mass of a week worth of junk before that particular stream of consciousness even trickled away, leaving him to stuff the spoilt load back into the shredded, flaccid bag.

And then he stopped, his hands freezing around the hollow, cardboard core of a spent roll of kitchen towel. Something, a gnawing paranoia, sharpened its teeth on the lining of his gut and the tingly, electric sensation that jittered away in every never was enough to stop his heart cold.

Someone was watching him… he could feel it, the pair of unknown eyes scanning and pouring over every detail of his turned, blind back.

The man remained hunched over like some lumbering, primitive ape as his ears went onto over-drive trying to hear above the internal hum of blood flushing back and forth between arteries and veins, trying desperately to pick out something from the myriad of every-day background interference for something to confirm this sudden phobia.

'_Crunch'_

Fredrick stiffened, the very air he was breathing whistling as it was dragged through his clenched teeth. The sound of broken glass fracturing into nothing more than sharp edged dust under foot seemed almost deafening in the confides of the tiny, claustrophobic ally. He felt the hairs on the nape of his neck go as ridged as copper wires while that 'whump-whup-whump' of his life blood reached a buzzing fever-pitch. All of a sudden, he may as well have been back in that dingy little hallway, smeared with viscera and gore while feeling the breaking sweat freeze against his clammy skin as something so horribly familiar skulked away in the blinding dark. Oh god, he was going to have to-

Frank turned, the soles of his dating shoes grinding against the cores gravel as he spun on his feet and shot up to his full, uninhibited height. The world was nothing more than a whirling blur as he pivoted round; a dizzying blur of greys and browns and everything that lay between.

And then something snagged his eye.

There was a break in the monotonous spiel and mercilessly, it reeled Fredrick in. He stopped, honing in on that which had caught his eye as it loitered just beyond the mesh fence that cut this particularly faceless ally off from the ground's of the neighbouring apartment.

"Oh no…" His pupils focused on what stood no more that a meter away, dilating to pin-head sized dots while the rest of Fred's surroundings simply became meaningless as this new vision over-road his brain. Hell, even the criss-cross lines of twisting iron dissolved into a fuzzy, distant thing.

What lurked beyond the fence dragged itself that little bit closer; raising its hands and letting the horde of fingers it bore lock themselves around the links of the fence. And then it did the worst thing of all.

It smiled…no, not 'it', _he. His_ cracked and splintered into that hideous expression That Goldfarb has seen leering forth from the darkness that fogged up The Dream, that foul night time visitor that would play out the same demented theme again and again like a skipping record.

"No…" Frederick felt something seize up in his chest as he stumbled back; scuffing the ground as he tried to back away on feet that felt as though they'd sunk right into the mass of grey, manufactured rock that sprawled out across the ally's floor. The Doctor merely looked on, dipping _his_ head and watching the whole display though _his_ arched brows as that damnabled grin split his lips even further.

"NO!"

**BANG**

"AGH!" something shot through his system like a dose of white hot electricity and some distant part of Fredrick's brain that was yet to be ravaged by the adrenalin coursing about his blood stream was barely aware of his feet leaving the ground as the clacking boom of metal on metal shook the air.

"Christ! What the hell's gotten into you?"

Fred stood there, hunched over and panting as he goggled at the figure standing in the door way that he'd come skulking out of only a bare few moments before. The some what lardy man stared right back at him, wearing an expression that suggested he'd just come across a two headed-fire breathing chicken that was fluent in Belgium. Goldfarb didn't hear the question, reeling back around to face the fence and the smiling monster that lurked just beyond it…

Except…_He _wasn't there, not anymore.

Frederic's sense of logic finally caught up with him. What? How was that possible? He'd only turned his head for what? The grand total of a split second and that foul thing in the white coat had some how managed to pull a better escape than Houdini could formulate in his widest dreams? Fred's head snapped back on to the man fast enough to give him a crippling case of whiplash, his wide eyes begging for some confirmation that he really had just seen what he though he had… That _he_, the very thing that woke him again and again at some disgusting hour basted with his own, Luke-warm sweat had really been there, only a yard away and walking around in the bright light of day.

The tubby man just stared warily back at him out of the corner of his eye.

Suddenly, Fredric was more than aware of the gabbled, hacking sound of his spluttering breath choking up and down the tight ally. God, what the hell must he look like standing here in a stack of his own waste and choking on the oxygen? Before the newest arrival on the scene even got the chance to open his rounded, sagging jaw again to re-phrase his un-answered question, Fred had collapsed back into the scattering of thrown away things, scooping them up in great armfuls before hurling them into the hungry dumpster and tearing past he of the by-gone salad days figure into the safe refuge of the apartment. The man stood there for a moment, listening as Fred thumped up the stairway three steps at a time.

"Weirdo…"

8 8 8

The bed whined, the springs coiled up like quiescent serpents voiced their objection at being flopped onto by fifteen stone of sweating, panting man. Fred, however, really didn't give a rat's ass if they weren't happy with the situation. No, he was too busy rubbing away at his temples with a pair of tightly balled fists as he sat perched on the corner of the bed, staring down at the patch of beige carpet between his shoes as if it had all the answers he sought. Sadly, the patch of fuzzy material didn't seem to be too talkative a mood and was more than happy to keep the secrets of enlightenment to itself while the man stewed in his own confusion.

"How…How?" the question that had come racing up the stairs after Frederic, snapping at his heals as sprinted back to the safety of apartment number two-zero-seven… or at least, he'd though he'd find refuge within its walls but apparently, he just hadn't slammed the door shut fast enough for that question had managed to grease in after him and finally managed to get Goldfarb trapped in a corner. No matter where he turned, the question of how something that he was so sure was just nothing more than some flitting shred of unconscious though had managed to break free from his (somewhat limited) imagination and come to be staring right at him from a plot of solid space in the real world glowered back at him. Oh, and that overlooking the _piece de résistance,_ the plain fact that _he_, that man-thing and its fouls, self-righteous smirk had somehow managed to dissolve away to nothing like some twisted Cheshire-Cat in the space of a few seconds.

How?

HOW?

**HOW?**

There was a click that only Fredric heard as some internal switch in his head ticked on and the proverbial light-bulb blazed into life. The taunt grimace that his facial muscles had worked themselves into began to wane and soften.

And then he laughed.

How? Oh, he had an answer to beat off that snarling question with and it was _so _deliciously simple. _He_ simply hadn't been there at all. Yep, it had all been his mind deciding to have a little fun and pulling one on him just for kicks. After all, he did had it coming; he'd been depriving the poor thing of its much needed sleep thanks to a particular habit of his that involved waking in a screaming fit and spending the remaining duration of the night eyeing the ceiling. That gave more than a sound reason as to why his fellow apartment-dweller had been gawking at him so… Hell, anyone was bound to be a little cagey if they discovered a person they live in a relatively close proximity throwing a blue-fit over something they _thought _they'd seen as plain as day, but in fact was nothing more than a space of empty, harmless air.

Fredric allowed himself a smile as he let his spine melt and flopped back onto the bed. Life was so much better when you took the time to take these things apart, look at them from afar and then approached with nice, big, healthy dose of logic…and to think, he'd been sitting here only moments earlier and ripping out his shambolic hair by its roots over something as ludicrous as the though that the contence of his nightmares were real, breathing things of flesh and blood. Fred exhaled, and with that simple, internal change of pressure, something escaped from him. Suddenly, all those empty, wasted hours of fretful tossing and turning came crashing down on him, squashing whatever virility happened to still be lurking within the man. He blinked but his eyes just didn't want to open again, the lids gripping to one another as if the skin had gained some kind of magnetic property all of a sudden.

God. He was so tired. Clearly, he must have received the angry red bill from the bank of the land of nod, scrawling on in a fat, bold print about just how big his over-draft was. The corners of Goldfarb's mouth picked themselves up at this as he rolled his head all the way back to the point that gravity's downward pull was able to chip in a hand with the formidable task of keeping his peepers open so they could seek out the time blinking across the face of the bed-side clock.

6.07pm.

Fred wriggled that little bit further up the bed and then just let go of it all. As he fell he slowly began to forget about all those things poking away at him as the warm wash of sleep crept over him. He forgot about the dodgy looking stains that now gripped the material of his shirt sleeve thanks to plunging them deep into the pile of spilt rubbish. He forgot about the monotonous carousel that was his life. He forgot about the fact that Harold Ledwin down in 117 probably thought he was as sane the next guy sporting a straight-jacket. He forgot about the way the gaggle of kids whose soul purpose in life seemed to be loitering outside the 'Happy Burger' joint he had to pass on his way home made him feel like curling up into a little ball as their eyes clung to him as he scurried past. He forgot about the waking dream.

There was however, one thing that clung to him like a bad smell as he drifted of into the inner-space of unconsciousness that he could not shake like all those other, trivial woes; That sudden explosion of blind, all consuming panic that'd blown a sizzling hole right through him as he'd turned around and caught sight of _him _staring right back. No, no matter how sound the excuses were, there was no way that he could deny the strangulating fear that had left him gibbering and ranting.

Surly, something born of one's own mind couldn't do that…unless you really were crazy.

'_Thunk'_

Frederic's eyes flickered open and the first thing that registered on his mind was how dark it was.

'_Must have been out for the count there…'_ That bossy occupant of his head commented. _'At least this time you weren't woken up by a pair of hands making a bee-line for that throat of yours.'_

At this, the eyes snapped open. His inner councillor had a point there. This was the first time in a while he hadn't been aroused by the sound of his own heckling screams bouncing back at him from the walls.

'_So…I didn't dream then?' _Still muzzy with sleep, Fredric lolled onto his side, propping himself up on the crook of his arm and squinting at the clock by his head.

0.00 - 0.00 - 0.00 was all it had to say on the subject of the time. The man blinked hard enough to ruffle the skin around his eyes and tried again.

0.00 repeated the clock, flashing its enigmatical display of zeros at the man. He was just about to make a grab for the appliance when-

_-'Thunk'_

Fred sat up, instantly forgetting all about the faulty clock.

'_What was that?'_

For a gap of time, all the man could do was sit there rigidly, trying to hear over the sound of his heart as it palpitated away behind the safety of his ribcage.

And then the paranoia returned. My god, what if it was one of those crazy psychopaths that you couldn't help but open a newspaper and find looking straight out at you from among the columns about some morbid story detailing how said person had broken and entered before promptly looting/raping/slicing and dicing the poor, hapless occupant as they slept!

'_Thunk'_

"Shit!" the tiny profanity breezed between Fredric's clenched teeth. After much deliberating and keeping tuned into the reigning silence for even the faintest hint of noise from the living room sprawled out beyond the closed bedroom door, Fred finally got to his feet.

"Hello?" The instant the word left his mouth, the man wished he could just clamp his teeth and catch that stupid gob of noise before it had a chance to punch right through the sudden deathly quiet that had fallen over the apartment. Of course, if there was someone skulking about next-door they were hardly going to return his feeble call with a friendly accost… if anything, they'd probably be grabbing the nearest blunt object to hand and be sidling up behind the door, ready to bump him off the moment he stuck his head out there.

'_so, what now?' _The voice droned dryly in a tone that suggested that right now, the thing that concerned his internal reasoning was the state of it's metaphorical fingernails. '_We're going to hold up in here until the cops barge in only to find your starved corpse stinking out the place? Anyway, since when did you _ever _hear of someone being murdered in their bed in Silent Hill of all places?'_

Fredric ran a tongue over his lips, sliding his feet (still clad with the shoes that had been just too much of an effort to remove last night) over the carpet as he idled up to the door as stealthily as possible. Laying a hand on the door knob, it suddenly dawned on him that he could just slink back into bed and forget all about these night time disturbances. After all, wouldn't he look like a right prat when he went bursting through that door only to find the furniture to be the only thing shocked by his barging in? Anyways, if yesterday was anything to go by, this could just be his mind playing a new game on him, or maybe a new variant of the same old dream.

Yes, at this point, Fredric Goldfarb could very easily have gone back to bed and cowered under the covers while waiting for dawn to come in all her fresh and rosy fingered glory…

… But in the long run, it would only have prolonged the meeting with what lurked beyond his bedroom door.

A/N- ok, no more refrences to SOTF, I somenly swear it and yay, I sem to be back in the trend of doing grossly long chapters. Oh, and I'm at collage now so this is going to be s l o w

Nivana- yep, so original that I stole his surname for a film. Kudos to you if you recognise it, you have taste.

Just-call-me-blue- appologies for taking so long with that but I'm more that greatful to hear you're enjoying this one

EPO- mmm, one day I do fear that I'm going to turn into a total Thomas hardy type (in which case you and everyone else can stone me to death). Umm… well, strictly speaking, there are no trap doors…fears legal action

Slap-dash- seriously, I'm more than flattered. I always worry and freat that I go too far with that kind of thing. Thankyou very much.

wiezerdgamir- well, I did warn you that this is somewhat derived from SH4 so that's to be expected. I do however promis this to be…original in most respects.

Nessmk- yes, there will be monsters, though this time round, they're going to have a little more meaning than those inhabiting the pages of SOTF


	4. Normality bids you a kind adieu

Chapter 3: Normality bids you a kind adieu

A deep breath and….

Fred slung the door open, bowling through it in what he deeply prayed was an imposing and utterly terrifying fashion.

"Who's in….here…"He felt the words in his throat dissipated into the empty air as the stomp of the off-white socks he'd forgotten to take of last night trickled away to a stationary silence. The congregation of chairs huddled around the table along and tv that had an excellent view of the couch stuffed up against the wall were the only things around to bear witness to his oh so heroic entry…and even they didn't seem to startled.

Fredric straightened up, blinking at the inky gloom saturating the living room before him.

'_See,' _His internal voice of reason droned, letting the word buzz around his skull like some slothunly fly. _'No one here. Can we please go back to bed and quit this whole jumping at our shadow's routine? It's staring to worry me…'_

But… but he_ had_ heard something. The furniture sure as hell didn't amuse itself at night by knocking into its fellow brethren and the pipes in the wall had scores of years left… at least that was what the land-lord had said, before they started going. No, he had defiantly heard something in here and there _was _going to be a sound, logical and thoroughly sane explanation for it.

Scouring the room, Fred took a step forward and…

'_Squelch'_

Whoa, rewind. That wasn't the sound one's foot normally made when coming down on the carpet…

A fresh sensation, something cold and damp, had started oozing its way through the thick layer of wool that kept Goldfarb's feet directly off the ground. The man let his neck go limp and his gaze drop, sliding down to the anomaly that was currently seeping through his left sock. He squinted; lifting back the foot in question… was it a trick of the neo-existent light or was the revealed bit of fabric a tone darker than the sea of the stuff sloshing about the rest of the floor? With a hint of caution, he tentivly pressed his foot down on it once again. Sure enough, that wet noise came swimming up to his pricked ears while the cold, slick feel of moisture took another damp lick at his foot. This time, he could even see the stuff bubble and rise up around the perimeter of his now thoroughly sodden sock.

"Now where did that come fr-"

'_KLUNCK'_

Suddenly, the wet clammy patch under-foot was the furthest thing from Fred's mind. The man froze, locked into position as all the muscles in his body seized up on him, clamping taught and stiff as the sudden rush of fear pumped through him.

That was the unmistakable sound of something o so solid and alive bumping against something else. Oh god. There _was_ someone in here with him.

Frederick swallowed as the revelation lay heavy in his gut, the sound of his Adam's apple sliding up and down seeming deafeningly loud in his own ears. Slowly, so very slowly, he began to turn his head towards the noise's point of entry; the great bookshelf that towered happily over everything else in the room by the window with its flimsy, slitted blinds. The only thing his eyes found was a pool of solid darkness, interrupted only by the orange rectangles of light as they poked their way through the parallel gaps running through the shutters.

"W-who's there?" My god, was his voice really that feeble and shaky? If it hadn't been for the fact that Fredrick felt akin to anyone in the latter staged of a cardiac arrest right now he would have squirmed at just how pathetic that little whimper sounded.

'_Tut-tut… got to do better than that.'_ Fred heard his mind's advice but couldn't really listen; no, he was to busy trying to stop his imagination going into over-drive in regards to just what was lurking in that deep, dark, enigmatic, depthless space. If he hadn't been living in this flat for the last tenth of a centaury or so and glanced in the direction of that point where the two walls merged into one another and the temple of literature at an average of twenty three point four times a day, Fredrick would have found it hard to believe that if he were to flick on the nearest light switch, those safe cosy things would all be revealed. No, from here that ominous darkness looked like some great, impossibly deep alcove; an entrance to a plane of pitch black shadows where all the things that lurked in twisted dreams ruled supreme. The mounting panic took another sharp jab at him; What if something from that dark, dangerous, unknown world was to come slithering in… better yet, what if it already had?

'_Ok, Now you're just being stupid.'_

Yes… his mental mentor was right. He was just over-tired and that combined with the revelation that there was somebody (who'd probably managed to pull of that all time favourite party trick involving a locked door and a credit card) was prowling about his very home.

With that settled Goldfarb swallowed his fear, turned off his imagination and grabbed the bull by the horns.

"I-I'm warning you right n-n-now… I'm going to call the cops unless…"

'_ggggGGGGUUUUUURRRrrrrrr-'_

Fred's lips tangled up the moment that rolling purr surged up from that oh so murky corner.

What. The. Hell. Was. That.

For once, the snappy little voice residing in the back of his skull didn't have a snappy comeback at the ready and very quickly it dawned on the man that he didn't particularly _want _to know what could make a noise like that. That retching (that was the only thing it could possible be put in the same league as)… in the sudden crushing silence that had coiled around the gloomy room like some thick bodied snake, it echoed in his mind, replaying itself over and over again in all its strangulated, hacking glory.

'_J-just turn on the lights or something, then we'll see what it really is and laugh…yes, because it's just some one who's in a shitty state and come staggering into our apartment. Yeah, you probably forgot to lock the door… you know how forgetful you are, I'm always having to remind you to-'_

The infallible, wet sploosh of fluid smacking into the floor cut off the frantic yammerings of his mind, instantly killing its sad attempt to assert some sanity on the situation.

The darkness shifted. Something rose up from the black, anomalous space below the window, blocking out the garish, out-side light as it blossomed into clear cut, faceless silhouette. That surreal, orange midnight glow of lamplight that remained untouched by this rising shape glanced off its sides did its very best to only highlight the smallest volume of detail… however, that alone was enough to make Fredrick's mind come to a crashing halt. For an insane gap of time, the man could do nothing but stand there, rooted to the spot and let his jaw go slack as his eyes absorbed what little there was that stood out from the black.

The thing turned and the discoloured streetlight danced off its wet, slick skin only to catch on the occasional humps where that moist, clammy flesh had bunched together. A scrawny neck, swollen with lumpy vertebra twisted up from its arched body, snapping and groaning as the silhouette's head rolled back.

'_uuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRR' _the black profile's mouth flopped open and the outside light was more that happy to highlight the jagged, blunt teeth that were suddenly cut against the gleam as once again, that heavy, vulgar groan broke into the silence. Once more, the sound caught and the thing by the window jerked as a torrent of gushing liquid came spewing forth from its yawning maw.

That was more than Fredric needed to see.

The man spun around, ripping his gaze free from that o so very solid shadow and vaulted for the door, feet slapping of the floor as he tried to put as much distance between him and that hideous, chocking thing. He tripped into the wooden panel cutting him off from the sweet sanctuary of the corridor outside, his fingers madly groping for the handle but the fleshy, frantic digits slick with their own salty juices just couldn't get a hold of the rounded knob hidden away in the dark.

"oh please"

Fredrik's ear's picked up on the loud thud of something collapsing onto the carpeted floor that shook the airwaves. Their epicentre… it was right in front of the window, wasn't it? He made another desperate snatch at the door handle as the sound of that thing feverishly scrabbling across the floor came scratching towards him with a sickening velocity.

Closer…

Closer…

Closer…

His fingers locked around the invisible hump of metal and in the nano second before the man did his best to rip the door from its very hinges and hurl himself over the threshold, the cool dome of copper was the most beautiful thing he'd ever felt in his entire lot of time on this earth.

With a scream, the man tumbled through the now open door out into the gloomy, waiting hall way. Catching himself before his momentum had the chance to hurl him into the adjacent wall, Fredric pivoted and took a mad swing at the door. Some distant, foggy part of his mind roared as the limply bunched fist caught the panel of wood and sent it slamming too before his twisted legs gave and he went crashing to the ground. He hit the floor, the wind rushing from his lungs with an ugly grunt.

And that was that.

Fredric lay there, heart pumping nine to the dozen and gasping like some poor unfortunate fish left to live out its last few moments of life suffocating on oxygen in the few dreg of water sloshing about a fisherman's boat. He let his eyes loll onto the hallway's floor which was suddenly only a bare few millimetres from his face as his mind tried not to frazzle out and overload as thought process after thought process came rattling through his already buzzing mind.

'_that thing…was it what I…how could that…it couldn't be real…'_

Fredric closed his eyes, his throbbing hand crawled up and gripped his tousled, shaggy hair as he tried to shut out the fearful up-roar raging within his skull. He didn't know… he just didn't know what that thing was. Maybe…maybe all those freakish details were just some malicious trick of the dim light… Maybe it just had been some poor rummy who'd come stumbling into his apartment looking for a place to hurl their guts…Maybe the boozed up sod had just collapsed to the floor in an alcohol-fuelled stupor and his brain, all dosed up on adrenalin, had merely imagined some sleek, wet, bony thing dragging itself after him on its very fingertips.

'_See… now your thinking logically.' _His inner concise piped up, just to remind Fred that it was still around and the two hadn't somehow managed to lose each other in that mad rush for the door. Out of the room with a layer of thick, solid wood between him and whatever it was scuttling about within 207, the voice's sneering, critical confidence had been reborn in a whole new glory._ 'There's nothing else that possibly could have been.'_

"And…" Fredric found him self adding between a pair of heavy, dragging breaths. "There's no such thing as…"

'_Indeed!'_ The voice popped up, saving the gasping man from rattling the 'm' word. Boogie men and things that go bump in the night… yes, they were all ludicrous, unreal, fictitious things that could only terrorise the young as they huddled up under their blankets, casting a fearful eye to the shadows crawling up their bedroom walls or waiting for the tale-tell creak of the closet door slipping open on its own accord (or not)…

So, if that was the case, why did the simple notion of pulling himself up and throwing open the wooden seal that was 207's door turn his innards to nothing more than a lumpy, churning soup? Was it perhaps because deep down, in some repressed part of his throbbing brain, something knew that the thing Fred had barged in on stumbling about his living room was something no amount of logic could define?

No. No, that most defiantly was _not _the case. He….he just didn't want to have to deal with something like this, now or ever.

With this resolve imprinted on his mind, Fredric pulled himself to his feet, his arms clambering up the wall in an attempt to support the pair of legs below him that seemed to be racked by a jittering case of the shakes. The door to his apartment swam into view and Fred let the authoritive little voice barking away at him dare him into hanging his gaze upon it for a moment.

'_See… a perfectly normal door leading into a perfectly normal apartment. There's nothing extra-ordinary about it…nothing…super-natural. Everything's as right as rain.'_

Wait… that wasn't quite true…

Fredric looked up, his eyes skittering down the shady hallway and flittering about between the doors that lined it on either side. A sense of quiet and serenity was the only thing to be found here. No, it shouldn't be this way….people… his neighbours, they should be tumbling out of their rooms in flocks right now. After all, one of the many afflictions of the human condition was curiosity and, if his ears hadn't been telling him porky-pies, he'd been screaming like a stuck pig as he'd come tumbling from the room. Surely if one heard what sounded like bloody murder being committed on their very door-step they'd come swanning out in hope of catching all the gory details.

So, the question was this; why hadn't anyone poked their noses out?

Ignoring the solid form of his very own door that had some how been transformed from the most mundane of every day objects into an instrument of sheer terror (along with the heavy, cold dread that had suddenly gestated and swollen with in his gut), Fredrick shuffled back, turning to the identical rectangle of wood that shielded the room that had been christened 205 from the now empty, dimly lit hallway. Without even considering the fact that Harold Keaten, the somewhat gym bound man's man who'd occasionally throw him an unsavoury grunt as they past one another on the stairwell would probably reduce his face to an indented crater for rousing him from his slumber at whatever time it was, Goldfarb did what anyone in his situation would. He hammered on that polished surface like there was no tomorrow.

"Harold?"

Nothing but the sound of his own balled fist beating the wood found its way back to his peeled ears.

"Harold? Are you in there?"

Fred tried not to hear the way his words twisted themselves up and screeched their way from his mouth between the ever louder thud of flesh on wood.

"Wake up Harold!" He banged on the door a final time, both fists diving into the wood but that alone wasn't enough to drown out the fearful pitch of panic in his straining voice. Unrelentingly, he tore himself away and turned his already humming hands to the next door... and the next… and the next. By the time Fred had reached the end of the corridor he'd succumb to that primal anxiety which had been let free from its spindly cadge of reason and was screaming, clawing at the wood as he begged for an answer from _somebody._

…But, no matter which of the doors he threw himself at, the response was all ways the same and he'd found the bitter answer to his question. No one came to his aid because, quite simply, no one on the second floor was home. Not one god damn soul. As this revelation finally burrowed through the hazy cloud of rabid trepidation that fogged his frantic mind, Fred found himself sinking away from the row of doors as they grinned maliciously back at the man.

Boiling frustration, panic and plain fear were all happily churning away inside him now. He felt his stomach lurch violently, the threat of expelling its meagre contense being no idle one and something pricked away at his eyes, goading out warm tears. His hands, now throbbing and already stained scarlet as the skin turned all pink found themselves and rung each other mercilessly.

"This… This just can't be…"

Possible. No, none of this could. Entire scores of people can't just up and vanish into the ether… hell, that was just as likely as coming across a freak of nature romping through your living room in the middle of the night. It was all just a dream… one of his horrible, horrible dreams. He'd wake up in a matter of minuets now with the familiar, stale smell of sweat plugging his nostrils and everything would go back to being normal. Everything… everything was going to be ok.

It was all fine and good and-

Fredric's fingers slipped, losing grip of the tiny ledge of rationality that held him suspended over this horrible, black myriad of chaotic emotion. Before he even realised what he was doing, his hands were back rummaging through his hair and he'd spun away from all those mocking doors and the empty rooms beyond. He barrelled through the entrance to the stair way and this rising wail came thundering after him. By the time he realised that sharp scream was coming from his own raw throat, it was far too late to make even the slightest difference.

A/N: Alrighty, I did warn you that this was going to be a slow and painful process and, my god, that's just what it's turning out to be. For those of you who are reading this, I thank you so much for putting up with the slow updates and I hope the text within makes up for that. To those of you who take the time to comment and critizise, I really appreciate you doing so. It means a lot and provides a hell of a lot of motivation.

…and I'm going to bugger off now before I find myself guilty of a 'gwineth paltrow'.


End file.
